Enemies
by Redd-Cliff-Rhapsody
Summary: First off, ZaDR type. So slash haters, run. RUN. Ahem. Angsty little thing i wrote a while ago. People have said it's good, so, r&r mebbe?


Okee-dokee, I know ya'll are going to toss stuff at me because I haven't wrote more of The Sky is Crying… but, yeah.  

Okay.   This thing… is something inspired from a breakup of sorts that happened a while ago.   It was wrote a while ago, in the middle of the night, when I was ready to drop onto my keyboard and fall asleep, drooling.   Then I finished it and sent it off to a friend, who said it was good.   Then I sent it off to anther friend-type-person who said that I should post this.  So, here it is.  

Just FYI, peoples, flames will be beat out with a monkey, which will then run off in a rabid rage to bite the said flamer's head.   Yeah, I can think up weird stuff.  It's funn…

Disclaimer: I want sleep…er, wait.  No.  that wasn't it.  I don't own a thing, and don't intend to make money off of anything I write, really.   

…Until I write something original that could actually get published.  Ha, like that'll ever happen!  

---

Somehow, some way they had gotten together, a beautiful example of the love-hate relationship.   After a while, it had become less hate, strangely enough.  It had been unexpected, in the least, and completely insane, as Gaz had called it.  Enemies were simply not meant to turn into lovers, it had never been meant to be.  

At one point, his planet had left him, and he had come to the Membrane household, disheveled and distraught.  Somehow, Dib had managed to handle Zim, and to calm the alien down.  Despite that, Gaz simply didn't see how the relationship was meant to be.  She had watched as it progressed through the years, and watched, almost helplessly, as the relationship she had begun to accept suddenly…stopped.  

Dib had been unusually silent for the next few days, not allowing himself to be tearful, and showing no resentment whatsoever.   And Zim had disappeared, barricading himself in his odd house that showed no signs of being inhabited anymore, except for the occasional adventure by Zim's robot-dog.  

It had only been recently, Gaz found, that she thought she saw Zim, walking down the sidewalk or just turning a corner, disappearing out of sight.    It had been two years since the boys' breakup, and Dib had seemed totally recovered, with a new boyfriend who he even left paranormal investigations for.   Gaz found it sickening how Dib had made himself.  

Gaz had sighed as she thought she caught another glimpse of Zim, reminding herself of what she thought so many years before.  Enemies were simply not meant to turn into lovers.  And, she had been right.  

*~*~*

It was a normal Saturday for Gaz; she had woken up, reached for her Gameslave which was always next to her bed and had played one round of whatever cartridge was in the Gameslave before dragging herself out of bed, to go downstairs and make a nutritious breakfast of microwave pizza and orange juice.   She had finished quickly as usual, having never been one for breakfast, and walked out to the living room couch, where she sat down, turned on the TV and played her Gameslave, somehow managing to watch the TV and play the Gameslave at the same time.  

But that's where the weirdness had begun.  

The phone had rung as Gaz started on beating the boss of the 15th level, and she answered it, cradling the phone with her shoulder and using both hands to play.   "Yeah?"

"Gaz?"  The voice on the other end of the line was familiar, but sounded so horribly odd because the tone was timid and almost humble, which was so out of character that Gaz would have dropped her Gameslave if she hadn't already after realizing who was on the other end of the line.  

"Zim?" Gaz gasped, clutching the phone with both hands and so surprised that her eyes opened fully, if not wider than usual.   She already knew it was the Irken, but couldn't stop herself from asking anyways.  

There was a pause, as if Zim was considering what to say, before he responded.  "…Can we talk?"

*~*~*

And that's how Gaz found herself sitting across from Zim, who looked funny in his now-dusty and matted wig, contacts, and just strange wearing an old sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that Gaz had no idea how he got.  They were sitting in a cheap diner, Gaz with a cup of coffee and Zim with nothing, as expected.   Somehow, Gaz found it odd that she now towered over Zim at 5'6", but she shrugged it off.  

Zim looked up at Gaz, and Gaz looked down at Zim, the silence bothering both but neither willing to break it.  

In a moment, Gaz couldn't bear it anymore and simply broke the silence with "So.  It's been a while."

Zim nodded in answer, looking at the tabletop before asking, "What's happened while I was gone?"

Gaz blinked at this, but filled Zim in anyways.  She skirted anything with Dib in it carefully, trying to make it seem as if Dib simply didn't exist.   Usually, she wouldn't have done that at all, but this time, she knew better.   Despite what some might think, she knew when to be harsh and when it was okay to show even the minutest bit of sympathy.  

She told Zim about Professor Membrane's inventions over the years, about how she never got a boyfriend and frankly was glad she didn't join the hordes of lustful teenyboppers, how she'd figured out how to make a game, how and why she'd kicked a classmate, some jock who came onto her, in the groin and got suspended, that sort of stuff.   Nothing about Dib, she was proud to say.    

A half-hour or so later, Gaz finished, and waited for Zim to say something.   The little alien wasn't looking at her, rather at some tile on the grimy floor of the diner.   There was a moment, then; "You didn't say anything about Dib."

This was another blink-worthy comment that, in fact, made Gaz blink.   She frowned slightly, but shrugged, and started talking about Dib.   How Dib got another boyfriend.  How he seemed to make a full recovery.   How he had given up paranormal study, how disgusting he acted now, how annoying, and how insanely he could act.   Most recently, how Dib had taken off with his new boyfriend for the weekend.   

Gaz had noted that Zim mostly looked angry or sad through the whole talk.  She decided that it was the Irken's own damn fault for asking in the first place, then looked down at her cold cup of coffee.  Neither being said anything for a moment, then Zim asked something that, yet again, caught Gaz by surprise.  

"Can I borrow money?"  

Gaz immediately looked up, and asked, "Why?" slightly suspiciously.

Zim glanced up and smirked, his smirk merely a ghost of what it used to be, missing any malice or superiority.   "Alcohol may be liquid, but it's not water," Was his only answer. 

*~*~*

Much later found Zim in a club, resting his arms on the bar and staring at the half-empty bottle of beer, which would soon join the two or three other bottles he'd already drunk.  The Irken sighed, listening to his inner thoughts, all of which were toned with a semi-high amount of self-loathing.   He had disgusted himself ever since the Tallest had told him the truth and left him on earth.  Somehow, Dib had calmed that self-loathing a bit, but then… 

But then the breakup happened, shattering what little care for himself Zim might have regained.   He wasn't sure himself why he hadn't just let himself die back then, but the Irken guessed it had something to do with the small hope, if just the smallest, that Dib might come back.     

The human never had.   And now Zim knew why.  Gaz had told him why.  Dib didn't care, simply didn't care at all, if his old-time rival lived, died, or gave himself up to the world for dissection.   Because Dib had someone else to fuck.  

Somehow in all the din of the club's music, Zim still heard the door open.  The alien glanced at the door only to go pale when he saw who entered the club.  

It was Dib, along with the new boyfriend Gaz had told him about.  Dib still looked fairly the same, and the other man who had his arm around Dib's waist was very average-looking.  The two looked very happy, Dib laughing at a joke the other male made.

Zim was hit with a truckload of emotions in that one moment; sadness, hurt, anger, jealousy, envy, hate, all at one time.   Then, fear.   The Irken turned back to the bottle in front of him, but not before noticing Dib's gaze had crossed over him, and paused.   Zim simply pretended he wasn't there.  

Unfortunately, Zim noticed out of the corner of his eye the former paranormal investigator remove himself from the other man's grip, probably saying he'd be right back in the process, and start towards the seated Irken.  

Zim sighed again, and reached for the beer bottle, gulping down half of the contents (which, despite not being water, burned slightly on the way down) and wishing that he hadn't come to the damned bar in the first place.  

It was only another moment before Dib's hand touched Zim's shoulder, and the human turned Zim around, demanding "Why are you here?" a certain amount of disgust in the word 'you.'  

"Drinking."  Zim answered, carefully keeping his expression and tone blank.  

Dib frowned slightly, then pulled away.  "Whatever, Zim.  Just don't mess in my business."  The human said, glancing at the man he had come with before turning with a sweep of his trench coat and walking back to the other man.  

Zim growled slightly, hurt and anger the prominent emotions now as he flipped Dib off behind his back, something Zim certainly wouldn't have done if sober.  The Irken sighed again a moment later, turning back to the bar and firmly slamming his head onto the wooden surface.   

*~*~*

It was only a day later when Gaz found an envelope on the doorstep addressed to Dib.  She shrugged and picked it up, tossing it at the tired Dib when she entered the kitchen.  Dib opened the envelope wordlessly, although a look of dislike passed over his features as he saw the handwriting.  

Although that look of dislike left Dib's features as he read the letter, changing to something like fear as he read it, word by word.   When he had finished reading the letter, Dib dropped it as if it was burning hot with shaking hands, then stood up quickly, almost knocking over the chair behind him.   The former paranormal investigator practically ran out of the room, and Gaz watched, slightly curious, before walking to the table and reading the letter Dib had left after she heard the front door slam closed.  

Gaz's eyes widened as she read the letter, and soon she understood Dib's look of fear.  

_'Wouldn't you hate it if you hated something, so completely, so fervently, but at the same time, you couldn't get enough of it, you loved it, you couldn't let it go?_

_It's happened before.  _

_Sometimes, there are times when you've been betrayed by someone, and it injures you so deeply.   So deeply you can't stop hurting, it just continues on, a low pain that, after a while, you forget is a pain at all.    You can come to ignore the emotion, or you can grow to truly hate the person who hurt you.   And sometimes, after that betrayal, despite the hurt, the pain, or the numbness, all you want is to be accepted again.  _

_Sometimes you want that person's attention again.   You want to be loved by them, and you also want them to come back to you, to admit they were wrong.   You can want them to apologize for what they did wrong, and you could apologize for what you did wrong, and everything can go back the way it's supposed to, or had been.  _

_But that's never how it goes.  It never ends that way.  Fairytale endings are impossible, they're a fantasy made up to comfort one's mind with an impossible perfection one always wishes for.   _

_There is no happily ever after, and I hope you'll remember that.  '_

After the body of the letter was finished, there was a name signed.  The word "Zim" finished the letter, wrote in a substance, Gaz realized, that was Zim's own blood.  

She dropped the letter shakily, staring at it on the table and backing up a step, before murmuring to herself, "Enemies can't be lovers."

Gaz was never more ashamed to be right.  


End file.
